Beluga

from Arctic Fever (Full Album) by Katie Metcalfe / Crown Of Asteria

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

£0.50 GBP or more
Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

Beluga

The white whale is hauled ashore,
his heavy body leaving deep, blood
stained passages in damp shale.

I thank this slow swimmer for coming
to the coast, for not leaving when
the rest of family made for the open sea.

As his body relaxes into the sand,
the ripped flesh around his open
wound flutters.

I think of how our organs
and skeletons are so similar.

I stand and watch my father
and grandfather cut into our
beached friend.

Blood, organs and thick intestines
spill into the churning shallows.

The dogs bray for the meaty soup,
pulling themselves back on their hind legs,
their mouths all teeth and dripping gums.

This beluga is long, healthy and fat.
Plenty will come from his carcass.

Anticipation swings about our heads
like bear hides drying in the brisk
north wind. We are all impatient to eat.

I crave the oily taste, its chewy texture
the satisfaction that I have been fed
by the sea.

My father and grandfather work fast.
Their knives are sharp, the blades
slip soundlessly through the blubber,
until all that is left is a memory of a
white whale in blood diluted with sea water.

We stock the fire with fat, chew cubes
of blubber, while mother tells us how she
once put her head into ice cluttered water,

when her father was busy gutting a seal,
and listened to the white ones gather around
the ice cap and sing a song of celebration
to their creator, Sedna, mother of the deep.